Point Judith Light has gone dark

Donita Naylor Journal Staff Writer donita22

Thursday

Nov 8, 2018 at 9:40 PMNov 8, 2018 at 10:19 PM

Point Judith Light is dark.

A transformer apparently failed during one of last week's storms, said Petty Officer Andrew Barresi, a Boston-based spokesman for the U.S. Coast Guard. The lighthouse is part of Station Point Judith in Narragansett.

Members of the Coast Guard's aids to navigation team has been out several times, Barresi said. They couldn't restore the light immediately, and Barresi said it was impossible to predict how long repairs would take.

A woman who relies on the light shining into her bathroom at night said she couldn't comprehend at first that a lighthouse could go dark.

In her house across Route 108 from the Fisherman's Memorial State Park in Galilee, her bathroom did seem dark this week, she said. She was not fully awake when she thought it may have had something to do with the end of Daylight Saving Time. "I must be just really tired," she said she concluded.

On her way home Thursday night, however, she could see, as she passed Scarborough State Beach, that the lighthouse beam was not sweeping. She drove to the Coast Guard station for a closer look. "I'll be darned," she thought. "It's not lit."

The Coast Guard reports all such changes in its weekly "Local Notice to Mariners." In the First District, which covers coastal waters from Eastport, Maine, to Shrewsbury, New Jersey, Point Judith is one of five lighthouses listed as LT EXT, or light extinguished. The others are Bakers Island, Portland Head, a different Bakers Island and Whipple Point.

Barresi said electronics aboard commercial ships and fishing boats show where the land is and where a light isn't working.

Sullivan was relieved that the Coast Guard was trying to restore her night light.

"I'm glad somebody's on it," she said.

— dnaylor@providencejournal.com

(401) 277-7411

On Twitter: @donita22

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